Cancer Vaccine Coalition
You may recognize Kristen Dahlgren from her 30 years working in news on television, reporting for the Today Show and NBC Nightly News winning the prestigious Edward R Morrow award and nominated for an Emmy. Perhaps her biggest and most important role thus far is as the Founder of Cancer Vaccine Coalition. After going through her own Breast Cancer Journey in 2019, Kristen researched cancer as she would a story and found that vaccines were in the works and possible.
Kristen is another example of how one person, one idea can make a difference. She launched the Cancer Vaccine Coalition and is already making an impact.
MCF spoke to Kristen about her new venture.
MCF:
How did you realize we were close to a vaccine and what needs to be done? (besides raising money — what is the actual process)?
KD:
After I was diagnosed, NBC had me doing a lot of stories about cancer and it was through that reporting I was introduced to Dr. Nora Disis at the University of Washington’s Cancer Vaccine Institute. I was blown away that cancer vaccines were in development and I had never heard of them. As we talked, I learned that scientists were working in their silos and not necessarily collaborating. We just saw during Covid what can happen when stakeholders work together and support research. We can do the same thing for cancer vaccines. We need to fund the research, but also streamline the approval process by quickly enrolling robust trials and involving the FDA. In the UK right now they are distributing cancer vaccines to 10,000 patients as part of a national effort to move vaccines forward faster. We can and must do that here. Many of us don’t have time to wait when there are promising treatments out there.
MCF:
Are there vaccines currently in trial?
KD:
YES. For many cancers! Not only are breast cancer vaccines in clinical trials but there are vaccines in trial for pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer, lung cancer, colorectal, glioblastoma and others. It is predicted a melanoma vaccine will be approved in 2025. These are in development by pharmaceutical companies and in major cancer centers. While I used to think cancer vaccines were a pipe dream for the future, I now know these are in development and I believe we will see many of them soon if we can support this incredible research.
MCF:
What is the most important message that people don’t know about how this all works…to actually get a vaccine?
KD:
Right now vaccines are in trials so talk to your oncologist to see if one is right for you. Some are even being given to high risk BRCA+ populations. Clinicaltrials.gov is where you can find out more about what trials are available. These trials are key to getting the data that we can compare vaccines to current standard of care (many of the trials add vaccines to current treatments) Trials must get data from a certain number of enrolled patients. By starting trials and enrolling the patients quickly we move things along. This takes funding which is why CVC is raising money to fund as many robust trials as quickly as we can. That’s the way to get shots in arms for everyone who wants one sooner.
